U.S. mulls plans to send Guantanamo Bay prisoners to Qatar prisons
Tejinder Singh – AHN News Correspondent
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The United States on Monday denied reports that Taliban prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, would be released on the streets according to the officials.
Explaining the “release,” of prisoners, Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokesperson negated “the impression of putting guys who are currently in Guantanamo on the street,” saying, “I don’t think that’s ever been contemplated. If we get to that stage, the discussion would be about transferring them into some sort of Qatari-secured situation.”
Denying that any decisions had been made on those transfers, Nuland told journalists, “We’ve made no decisions. We have been consulting Congress about steps and sequencing and all these things, but we’re not there yet.”
Nuland enlarged on the efforts of U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Marc Grossman with his travels in the region.
Citing from his press conference with Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin on the peace talks with the Taliban, Nuland said, “Both DFM Ludin and Ambassador Grossman made clear in their press conference, both Afghanistan and the United States support a peace process going forward.”
On the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar, Nuland said, “We’ve also made clear that we think Afghans and Qataris need to talk directly with each other. And Ambassador Grossman also made clear, supported by DFM Ludin, that one of the things that we need to see in addition before such an office could open is a firm statement by the Taliban rejecting violence and making clear that they’re seeking peace.”
Nuland reiterated the need for the Taliban to come clean saying, “Ambassador Grossman has been very clear publicly now that the Taliban need to make a firm, clear, public statement that they are against international terrorism and that they support a peace process,” concluding, “And absent that, it’s hard to move forward.”
@ Nick,I am not suggesting that _any_ cortnuy adopt national socialism.What I wrote was that, in my opinion, Churchill made a fatal error in not assessing Stalin and communism as the greater long-term threat.Foreign policy has both near-term and long-term ramifications. What looks good in the short term, might look like a disaster in the rearview mirror.It is very possible that Churchill’s choice, sent history in a direction that will result in the destruction of the indigenous peoples of Europe.Communism, globally, has killed far more people, overall, than Hitler’s national socialism.I posit that had Lenin, Stalin and their successors taken over all of continental Europe, via expansion of the USSR, the death toll and general misery would have been even higher.Stalin was not exactly a friend of the Jewish peoples, either. He oppressed and/or killed off an awful lot of them. Russian Jews sure did seem quite motivated to emigrate, as soon as they had the chance.@ GoetheChoseMercy:Hitler was an ally of the Japanese. I like Shinto.The U.S. is an ally of Saudi Arabia.”The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”"Hold your friends close, and your enemies closer.”I see a plethora of strategic reasons why Hitler incorporated some Muslims into his strategy. That doesn’t mean that Hitler intended upon converting to Islam anytime soon. @ Sagunto:I grew up in the cortnuy, in the American Midwest. There were neither Jews nor Muslims there to be found. One don’t grow up hating persons of either of those groups, if one doesn’t have any exposure to them.I do recall that life was nice and peaceful. We milked cows and goats, sheared sheep, rode horses, collected eggs, bailed hay, tended the gardens, and the plethora of other farm chores. Our nearest neighbor was a mile away. We lived on a gravel road. My father would always bring home history and foreign language books, for us to read as our entertainment, that we picked up from area farmer estate auctions. Several of my favorite books were the mythology books. We did a lot of star-watching. I had lots of cats and kittens. It was a good life.We studied Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, and other mythology treatises, in high school. I studied Homer, Hesiod and other such works in college. I wrote a long essay on Medea in the 11th grade, that won honors. I have entire bookshelves of world mythological works, in various languages — including Grimm’s and Rydberg’s Deutsche Mythologie in English, German and Swedish. They are some of my favorites.Where I grew up, it was considered a blessing to have access to such works — it was a sign of a cultured, albeit humble, family. I am fortunate that my father, a humble farmer and machinist, loved to read about the world, and brought it home to me.